One Last Mission
by Scribbler
Summary: Axel begs Roxas to go on one last mission, thinking that if he buys enough time he can convince him to stay with the Organisation. Unfortunately the last mission takes them to a world with a Princess of the Heart, and Roxas's head is turned...


**Disclaimer: **Not mine!

**A/N:** Written for Dreamer1789 on the LiveJournal community KH Request. She asked for a non-shippy Roxas and Pocahontas meeting.

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_**One Last Mission**_

© Scribbler, August 2008.

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"Don't go yet. Think about it for a while."

"I've been thinking about it for months. I'm not waiting any longer."

"They'll kill you."

"No they won't."

"Nobody leaves the Organisation."

"I do."

"At least don't leave before the next mission we're scheduled to go on together. I'll get partnered up with Demyx or something. Or _Saïx_. Would you really condemn me to that?"

"You expect compassion? From _me_?"

"I _expect_ you to finish what you started."

"That's exactly what I'm doing."

"Okay, okay, bad choice of words. I want you to come with me."

"… You can't change my mind."

"Is that a yes?"

"One mission."

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The girl is obviously a Princess of the Heart. Roxas isn't sure how he knows, but he does. She seems to shine brighter than everything around her, as though lit by some inner glow – impressive, considering he can barely see a foot in front of him in the spray from the waterfall, but still knows exactly where she is because of this glow.

He juts out his left hand. The keyblade in it would get her in a clothes-line tackle if she hadn't evaded him by splashing right off the rocks and into the water. It's not as shallow as it looks here, and Roxas stays perfectly still, anticipating which direction she might strike him from.

But she doesn't strike him at all. Some sixth sense prickles, like a tug in his chest, and he turns to see her climbing out onto the far shore. She's running before he's even made it to the first rock, but he overtakes her easily and leaps from tree to tree, landing in her path in a flurry of leaves.

It's a stand-off. She trembles with the energy to spring in any direction, while he remains statue-like, only his eyes tracking her movement. She frowns at him, not in anger as he might've expected, but in genuine puzzlement.

"Why are you following me? You're not a part of John Smith's group. I asked him, and he had no knowledge of you."

Ah yes, one of the two sides he and Axel have spent the past few days observing. There's the potential for a lot of powerful Heartless in both groups, but some from each shine with purer hearts, and this girl's shines brightest of all.

Princess of the Heart … the title resonates with him somehow, in ways he can't explain. He's never met one before, though he knows other members of the Organisation have. Despite this, something deep within him _squeezes _when he sees the faint corona of light around this one. She's too tall, her skin isn't right, her hair too long and her feet bare and callused, but there's still something so _familiar_ about her that he could almost believe his non-existent heart is racing.

Almost.

Roxas sets his feet and raises one keyblade in guard position, the other in an offensive grip. This mission was strictly recon, so he has no orders for what to do with a creature of her nature. By rights he shouldn't even have engaged her, but he literally couldn't help himself when he saw her walking alone through the forest.

A small grey animal winds its way around her ankles, glaring at him but quaking with fear. Roxas looks down at it, face impassive as ever, though behind it he's doing some frantic paddling.

Is this a memory from his Other? He reaches for it, but it slips away like fine dry sand though his fist. He reaches again, pushing into the crevices of his own mind with … frustration? Is that really an emotion flickering around his mind?

It's gone as soon as he acknowledges what it might be, but that doesn't change the fact it was _there_. He _felt_ something, however briefly, and his palms itch inside their gloves like the keyblades are giving him static shocks.

Axel was wrong. This mission just makes him more determined than ever to find out why the keyblades chose him – and why he can see the light from a Princess of the Heart when Axel, upon seeing her, could only make comments about 'legs that don't stop'. None of the other Nobodies can sense things the way he can, except maybe Naminé, and everybody knows she's special compared to the rest of them.

Roxas swipes the keyblades outward, as though crossing out the girl and her pet, and opens a portal.

"Wait!" She takes a step forward, then stops. "Please … at least tell me why you're here. If you're not a part of John Smith's men, whose people do you belong to?"

Roxas pauses before answering. "That's what I intend to find out." Then he steps into the portal without looking back.

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_**Fin.**_

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End file.
